Why Dryland Cereals Matter

Dryland cereal crops provide the food, feed and fodder essential to the health and prosperity of millions of smallholder farming families in the most difficult farming areas of the developing world. These families have few other crop options, because other crops just can’t take the heat. These poor rely on sorghum (33.6 million hectares in our target countries), pearl millet (32.4 million hectares), barley (14.5 million hectares) and finger millet (unrelated to pearl millet; 0.9 million hectares) for their daily sustenance.

Why does this matter to the CGIAR? Because these crops contribute solidly to the top-level goals of the CGIAR’s Strategy and Results Framework, known as System Level Outcomes:

The CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Cereals (Dryland Cereals) is a partnership between two members of the CGIAR Consortium – ICRISAT (lead center), and ICARDA, along with a number of public and private institutes and organizations, governments, and farmers globally.